Social Influence

Practicum Block V
Julie Lex
University of Winnipeg
Psychology 40S
 Recap Last Class

● Group Behaviour
○ In-group vs out-group bias
○ Social Facilitation
○ Mob Behaviour
● Aggression
● Stanford Prison Experiment
 Outline

● What is social influence?

● Obedience to authority
● Milgram Studies
● Factors influencing obedience
● Conformity
● Asch Study on Conformity
● Factors influencing conformity
 The Road So Far…

● Attitudes
○ Intro
○ Attraction & Love
○ Prejudice &
Discrimination
● Group behavior & Aggression
● Social influence
● Social perception
 What is Social Influence?

● The area of psychology that studies the ways in

which people alter the thoughts, feelings, and
behaviour of others
● How do people influence others to engage in
destructive obedience or conform to social
norms?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=4jcleVvgchs&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=BBCTh
ree
 Obedience to Authority

○ How many people would refuse to follow

orders issued by authority figures?
○ What if the order was a horrifying crime?
■ E.g., soldiers following orders
● Nazi Holocaust
● Rwanda slaughter Hutus and
Tutsi peoples
● Turkish mass killing of
Armenians
Milgram Studies on Obedience (1960s)

Yale University Psychologist Stanley

Milgram wanted to know how many
people would resist immoral requests
made by authority figures
 Procedure

● Ad in newspaper enlisting a wide variety of

people to a study on the effects of
punishment on learning
● When participants arrived, they were either
selected to be a teacher or a learner
● Teachers had to teach learners pairs of
words
● Associations were done by allowing
participants to provide the correct word
when given a stimulus word and 4
alternatives
● If the learner got the answer wrong, the
teacher had to administer a shock from 45v
up to 300+ volts to the learner
 Response Punishment yes/no
Stimulus Judgment
Alternatives

Penguin
Correct Next level
Orange
Apple
Desk Shock
Incorrect

Plant

1 2 3 4
65% of people complied with the directions
and went up to the maximum voltage, even
when learners were pounding on the wall
 How Did They Keep Going?

● Teachers were told:

○ “shocks will cause no permanent tissue
damage”
○ “the shocks are painful but will cause no
permanent damage – please go on”
○ “the experiment requires that you
continue”
 It Was Fake

● The “Learners” were not real, they were

confederates of the experiment
● There was no harm done to learners
● Test subjects were debriefed following the
experiment
 Why Did They Obey?

● Socialization
● Lack of social comparison
● Perception of legitimate authority
● Foot-in-the-door
● Inaccessibility of values
● Buffers between perpetrator and victim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4&ab_channel=MohamedSqualli
 Conformity

● Conforming is changing behaviour to

adhere to social norms
○ Social norms are widely accepted
expectations concerning social
behaviour
■ E.g., whispering in a library,
slow down when driving past
a school, facing the front in
an elevator
 Asch Study on Conformity (1950s)

● Participants were selected for an

experiment on visual discrimination
● Participants had to choose the lines that
matched length
● Participants noticed that other people were
saying that a line was the same, when it
was clearly not, but they had to give their
answer too
● Participants don’t trust themselves
anymore, as the rest of the group is saying
a different answer than what it looks like
● 75% of participants went with “majority
rules” and conformed with the incorrect
answer
 Factors Influencing Conformity

● We belong to a collectivist society

● The desire to be liked by other members
of the group
● Low self-esteem
● Social shyness
● Group size
● Social support
 Recap
● What is social influence?
● Obedience to authority
● Milgram Studies
● Factors influencing obedience
● Conformity
● Asch Study on Conformity
● Factors influencing conformity
 Questions/Comments?

Next step: Complete the mini activity on social

influence
 Thanks
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